


Your Weary Widow Marches

by alltheircrimesarejust



Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: Canon Trans Character, Death, F/M, Grief, M/M, Multi, Victoriana, damien as a widower, excessive use of victorian trivia, spousal death, victorian mourning customs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 15:57:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11740332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltheircrimesarejust/pseuds/alltheircrimesarejust
Summary: “We regard death with fear and mourning with discomfort. We’ve made it into something foreign and untouchable so that when it does come, we’re completely unprepared for loss, emotionally. The Victorians lived in a world where death was overt and sexuality was taboo. We live in a world that is very much the opposite.”Well, fine. Robert couldn’t disagree. He was absolutely more comfortable with sex and the burying of his problems in sex than with death. It was a thing.ORRobert Small doesn't like to think about grief, death, and mistakes. Damien does.





	Your Weary Widow Marches

**Author's Note:**

> So this is based on a headcanon I have that Damien is a widower and that he was more of a typical Goth until the death of his spouse (in that headcanon, I flip flop on who his spouse was, but in this fic I gave him a wife to better pair with Robert's story). Victorian mourning traditions helped him move past his spouse's death. 
> 
> The title is a line from _The Black Parade_ because of course it is.

Make no mistake, he believed in cryptids. Sure, Mothman was bullshit and El Chupacabra was probably just a coyote with sarcoptic mange, but Robert Small thought most of that stuff was real and he did go out at night sometimes, trying to find answers. 

And sometimes, cryptids were just a great fucking excuse. Sometimes the bar did final call and going home to the quiet and the booze just seemed too sad, even to him. Sometimes it was better to clip a leash on Betsy and go out for a walk until God-only-knows in the morning while smoking and ignoring Massachusetts’ open container laws. If he ran into someone he knew, all Robert had to do was slap on the usual smirk and make up some shit about the Dover Ghost or the Loveland Frog and people stopped asking questions. 

At least when he went walking in the cemetery, he already knew the ghosts were there. They’d be there whether or not he walked wide circles around the proximity of Marilyn’s grave. If the ghosts figured out that he never had the balls to go stand in front of her and face his mistakes, at least they didn’t rat him out to anyone. 

Damien Bloodmarch though. That was another problem. Whether or not he actually counted among the undead, he’d been at the cemetery more and more, usually in the early evening or very early morning. This was a problem as those were Robert’s favorite times to stalk around and brood by himself. The last thing he needed was a flowery worded greeting that went on for too many multisyllabic words. 

The worst was that when he was so unfailingly gracious that even Robert felt a little churlish about blowing him off. 

So, him being here tonight was a fucking problem. Robert didn’t particularly feel like straying from the pathway he was on but he also didn’t feel like joining Bloodmarch on one of his weird little picnics. Maybe if he kept his head down…

“Robert? Is that you?” 

Shit. Well now he was in for it. Polite conversation or death. Sometimes ‘or death’ seemed preferable but if he was going to give into that, Robert wanted to be going at least ninety on the freeway in the wrong direction. He picked his head up and nodded. “Bloodmarch,” he said, by way of acknowledgment. Distantly, he noted the lack of picnic basket or wine bottle. Just a book and a bouquet. 

“Good…” Damien consulted his pocket watch, because of course he had a pocket watch. It was detailed with a monogram and black enamel. Fancy. “Good morning,” he said. Robert waited for a longer span of words, something about their serendipitous meeting or the mellifluous morning but Damien was uncharacteristically brief. 

It was jarring enough that Robert shifted his weight, looking down at the flask in his hand instead of at Damien or at any graves. “You know, shit like this is why people think you’re a vampire,” he said. 

Damien didn’t shrug, exactly. It was more like his shoulders narrowed, a bird shuffling its wings. “What they think is of no consequence to me,” he said. He leaned forward and plucked a flower from his bouquet, holding it out to Robert. It was a delicate shade of light purple with a round cluster of tiny blossoms. “If this reassures you at all, this is a garlic blossom. As you can see, handling it doesn’t cause me any discomfort.” 

When Robert didn’t take the flower, Damien tucked it carefully back into the bouquet among its fellows. Robert recognized what he thought was honeysuckle, nestled in with another round blossom in a much darker purple than the garlic flower. “Purple huh? Branching out into lighter colors. Or just couldn’t get the death’s head roses to thrive?” 

“You know that death’s head roses aren’t real, don’t you?” Robert had not. “Someone just posted a rose that happened to look like a skull on the internet and people ran away with it. And purple and gray were acceptable colors for half-mourning, you know.” 

“What’s that, like mourning in the front, party in the back?” 

Damien seemed to be suppressing a chuckle. Robert didn’t know he had it in him. “Half-mourning is the stage after deep-mourning, when a widow was allowed to beginning rejoining society after a year’s seclusion. Half-mourning allowed for the inclusion of decorated hats and modest jewelry as well as colors such as gray and purple. Although, some Victorian novels did see the appeal of a widow as a woman with some…worldly experience.” 

“Hot.” Nothing like hitting on someone after a year of total isolation. Maybe Robert shouldn’t have been throwing stones though but he’d kind of done it in reverse, hitting on anyone in the vicinity after a couple of years’ worth of seclusion. It worked, sometimes. One-night stands, like drinking and cemetery strolls, were good at filling the silence. 

“I always thought it was a bit cruel, though.” 

“What?” 

“Well, deep mourning was the time when widows were likely to need their friends and family the most, wasn’t it? Only, the rules of deep mourning prevented a widow from going out into society, from making or receiving callers. In fact, it was proscribed that a widow not attend any ‘place of amusement’ for six months at all.” 

Robert failed to see how that was a bad deal himself but Victorian widows probably didn’t have a flatscreen TV. 

“Whether or not an individual actually followed such strict isolation was dependent on the grieving party but Victorian society did have ways of being censorious if need be.” 

Robert put a cigarette to his lips and lit up, pretending not to notice the delicate wrinkling of Damien’s nose. “I’m surprised you have a bad thing to say about the Victorians.” 

“Part of being a historian, even an amateur one, is being critical of the period one admires,” Damien replied. He sounded kind of prim about it and Robert tried very hard not think it was cute. “But I do find the traditions of mourning to be interesting, beautiful even.”

“You would.” 

Damien didn’t speak for a long moment, running a finger over the face of his watch. Now that the sun was starting to rise, Robert thought he could make out the letters D, M, and C. D and M were obvious but he had no idea what the C stood for. Even he wasn’t oblivious enough not to know that Bloodmarch’s kid was named _Lucien_. 

The moment stretched long enough that Robert was actually kind of surprised when Damien spoke again, coming up with another factoid. “Mourning jewelry was especially popular in the Victorian Period. Lockets might have an intricate piece of art woven from the deceased’s hair. Or it might be braided into a watch fob–” Robert was relieved to notice that the chain for Damien’s watch was made of metal. “–to keep the deceased close. Especially in the age before photography.” 

Even with photography, Robert didn’t see the point. Marilyn had died with things on a bad note between them and Val had written him off right after. Coping with everything that had gone unfixed and unresolved had just felt like shit, so all of his pictures of Marilyn had ended up in an airtight box in the attic. Likewise, all his memories–good and bad–had gotten filed away into a box in his mind, one that was taped tightly closed and labeled with “To Be Opened: Never.” It was tidier that way. 

“Seems morbid to me,” Robert said. 

Damien did that birdlike little shrug again. “Admittedly, it was a bit of a spectacle but I think I prefer public displays of grief and a certain intimacy with death than the way we handle it in today’s society.” 

“Which is?” 

“We regard death with fear and mourning with discomfort. We’ve made it into something foreign and untouchable so that when it does come, we’re completely unprepared for loss, emotionally. The Victorians lived in a world where death was overt and sexuality was taboo. We live in a world that is very much the opposite.”

Well, fine. Robert couldn’t disagree. He was absolutely more comfortable with sex and the burying of his problems in sex than with death. It was a thing. 

“To acknowledge death and become comfortable with it, I think, gives us a certain intimate knowledge of ourselves. To sit amongst generations of those who came before us, to be truly alive in the midst of so much death, brings me great comfort.” 

Robert wondered just what fucked up shit Damien had encountered that hanging out with dead people was comforting. He tried, as well, not to think about what fucked up shit he wasn’t dealing with to feel the same way. 

“Death helps me appreciate life. To savor every second.”

“I bet you use that line on all the guys.” 

At some point, he’d burned right through the cigarette and he stubbed it out on the pavement, throwing it away in a nearby trashcan for once instead of leaving it there. He was very surprised when Damien withdrew a shiny cigarette case from his cape and held it out to Robert. “Clove, huh?” 

Damien nodded and his gaze went distant as he took a clove cigarette for himself and lit it. By Robert’s standards, Damien didn’t really smoke. He just held the smoke in his mouth and then blew it back out but the smell was relaxing. “I indulge about once a year. I used to indulge far more heavily in my youth. Part of the Goth image and all that.” 

“Once a year, huh? Makes you a damned saint compared to me,” Robert said with a rough chuckle. He’d forgotten that the smoke from cloves was always a little harsher on his throat compared to his usual American Spirits. 

Damien nodded and gestured with his cigarette to the grave in front of him. It was the first time that Robert really looked at the grave. “Carmilla Bloodmarch?” 

“Yes. It _was_ Blutmarsch but she always thought it sounded a bit sinister. When we married, I’d begun transitioning. When I legally changed my name, so did she.” 

Robert wanted to start saying something about how ‘Bloodmarch’ didn’t actually sound any less sinister but even he knew when to bite his tongue. D, B, and C. Damien and Carmilla Bloodmarch. “How long ago?” 

“Ten years now. It took us all by surprise. One moment she was alive and laughing, telling us she didn’t need to see a doctor over a ‘little cold’ and the next…” Damien sighed. “Pneumonia. Lucien was still very small but I know he remembers her well enough to miss her as badly as I do. I imagine he’ll come by to pay his respects later. When he’s ready.” 

Robert thought guiltily of Marilyn’s grave, up at the north end of the Maple Bay Cemetery. “Is this the part where I leave you alone?” 

“If you wish. I like to think she’d have enjoyed the company. I was reading to her,” he said, holding up a book. The title was _Romancing the Inventor_ and there were definitely two women in Victorian dress kissing on the cover. Hardly seemed like the kind of thing to read at a grave but maybe they just had that kind of relationship. 

“She adored Victoriana, was working on her dissertation on the topic of Victorian nostalgia in the face of the Industrial Revolution. It was a passing interest for me until we met.” Damien smiled, already seeming to anticipate Robert’s disbelief. “But when she talked about it, her eyes lit up and it was hard not to fall in love with it too. And her.” 

Robert thought about the things Marilyn had loved but most of those were in that box he didn’t open. The only things of her he kept outside of that box involved ‘drinking’ and ‘screaming.’ Not very comparable. His inability to come up with an analogous story about his own dead spouse left him quiet, hating himself a little. The sunrise cast long shadows over Damien as he rearranged his bouquet and laid it on the grave. The book he tucked into his cloak with the cigarette case. 

“It’s…well it’s not late. Quite the opposite in fact, but let me walk you home at any rate,” Damien said. He held out a hand and for a second, Robert expected there to be some kind of twist, some trick, but that was the kind of trick he would pull, not Damien. He closed one rough, ruined hand around Damien’s. Despite the well-manicured appearance, there was some callus to his hands, probably from tending that garden of his. 

Robert held onto his silence for a while until they were nearly to the gate and then he cleared his throat. “The bouquet. It was nice,” he said. “The flowers mean anything? Victorians liked that kind of thing, right?”

Damien’s smile was so bright and hopeful, despite the fact that they were walking away from his spouse’s grave. Maybe there was something to all of his Victorian death stuff, if he could smile that much after all of this. “Honeysuckle represents the bonds of love while the dark purple ones, scabiosa or mourningbride, represent well…grief. The garlic blossoms represent strength and courage but also, I believe she would have enjoyed the irony.”

Okay, Robert had to smile at that. You didn’t legally change your name to ‘Bloodmarch’ without a healthy sense of irony. “Sounds like a perfect bouquet.” 

“I like to hope so.” 

They walked hand in hand back to the cul-de-sac and Robert looked over at Damien’s house, all black with the gargoyles on it. In the morning light, the gargoyles looked sort of friendly (one reminded him of Betsy, actually) and the black house looked elegant, not creepy. 

“Here we are,” Damien said, pausing in front of Robert’s house. Gently, he patted the back of their still-joined hands and then let go. “Get some rest, my dear friend.” The morning light illuminated his face too and Robert noticed, for the first time, the deep blue color they had. Almost violet. Like those flowers. 

“Yeah,” he said, already mixing a very powerful cocktail in his head. If he wasn’t too hungover to think about Marilyn after drinking it, he’d get into a knife fight with the entire liquor store. 

Robert lingered in his driveway, watching as Damien’s lonely figure crossed the cul-de-sac back to his home. When he went inside, Robert meant to make a beeline to the bar but somehow, he got sidetracked and went into the attic, hunting down an airtight plastic box that held some old, old photographs. 

Maybe Damien could show him how to make a brooch or something fancy.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Romancing the Inventor_ is, in fact, a real book about Victorian lesbians. It's by Gail Carriger and also includes vampires and werewolves. 
> 
> Resources on Victorian Mourning that I used:  
> https://msu.edu/user/beltranm/mourning/mourning.htm  
> https://io9.gizmodo.com/love-after-death-the-beautiful-macabre-world-of-mourn-1498829544  
> http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/21/world/death-becomes-her-exhibition/index.html  
> http://www.victoriana.com/VictorianPeriod/mourning.htm
> 
> As well as casting my mind vaguely back toward a course I took on Victorian Great Britain in my senior year of college. I did, in fact, write a paper about Victorian Nostalgia but it was not a dissertation.
> 
> Carmilla Bloodmarch is named for the vampire novella "Carmilla."


End file.
